This piece originally appeared at Nuclear Barbarians.
Last week, Montana took a step forward in nuclear power development when HB 623 left committee. The bill allows nuclear power plants to store their waste on-site, aligning the state’s regulations with the majority of the country. Without this bill, potential nuclear developers and operators would find themselves left in the lurch, waiting for the federal government to develop a national waste disposal site.
The Treasure State has been moving in a pro-nuclear direction since 2021 when it repealed its nuclear moratorium — a creation of late-1970s degrowth politics. In 2022, the state published a study looking into the feasibility of advanced nuclear reactors. Nuclear could provide Montana with a robust offramp from coal power, the report concluded, and could thus allow the state to increase its power supply and drive down power costs.
However, environmental organizations have their fangs sunk deep into the state’s political edifice, which jeopardizes the development of any baseload power at all, let alone nuclear. Forward movement on anything from burning fossil fuels to splitting atoms will mean direct confrontation with a political ideological force militated against America’s founding principles.
